


Carried Away From the Shore

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [67]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dirty Talk, M/M, Teacher/Student Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 07:51:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15092375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: “I don’t like having to share you with the world.”Steve shook his head and rolled out of bed, padded towards the bathroom. “Hardly the world, Tone. Just my eight AM class.”





	Carried Away From the Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: student/teacher and possessiveness. Prompts from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

“I don’t like having to share you with the world.”

Steve shook his head and rolled out of bed, padded towards the bathroom. “Hardly the world, Tone. Just my eight AM class.”

“So you’d choose a horde of malcontent teenagers--none of whom want to be sitting in your class this early, babe, I’m sorry; not a one--over me. I see how it is.” 

“Believe it or not,” Steve called, his voice bouncing off the tile, “this isn’t about you.”

Tony fell back with a sigh, turned over and buried himself in the warm sink of the sheets that Steve had so cruelly abandoned. “Yeah, yeah: your job, the kids, the future. Sure. That’s all well and good. You dash off to shape their minds and leave your boyfriend’s poor, lonely body cold and alone in this bed. Right.”

Steve stuck his head around the door jam, his toothbrush stuck sideways in his mouth. “I can turn up the heat when I leave.”

“Hilarious.” Tony shot his eyes up to the ceiling, at the first gray streaks of dawn there, waiting. “Never let it be said you’re not generous, Rogers.”

He lay back and listened to Steve’s familiar morning sounds: the sound of running water, a splash. The tap of a toothbrush on the edge of the sink. Then water again. The clink of a comb.

It was unusual for him to wake up when Steve did, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Steve crept out of bed before dawn. Usually, he’d stir a little when Steve said goodbye, when he laid his lips over Tony’s forehead or his cheek, but otherwise would pass the godawful early time as the Lord had intended humans to do: asleep.

But this morning, he’d been awake before Steve--a bad dream, maybe, or a good one--and wormed his way under Steve’s oak tree of an arm, pressed his head back against Steve’s chest, the place he always started the night and invariably drifted from, driftwood carried away from the shore by the tides.

His pouting was partly for show, partly because some part of him could never resist trying to wind Steve Rogers up, no matter how Sisyphean the task. The man was pretty unflappable anyway, most of the time, but when it came to his students--especially the 90-odd freshmen in his World History survey--his dedication and focus could not be shaken.

Or could they?

Steve stepped out of the bathroom, still shirtless, his khakis already pulled up and belted neat. He moved quietly, efficiently, as he no doubt did every morning while Tony was still dead to the world; stepped into the closet and rustled about for a shirt. A white one. He always wore white when he taught. He said--Tony pursed his lips; what was it he said?--that white hid the chalk dust best.

Tony had seen him teach before, had perched at the back of the class, high up in the lecture hall, and watched Steve navigate the room, the time, his audience like a performer; as much an actor, Tony thought, as an instructor. He was engaging and funny and stern as hell when they didn’t do as well on a test as they should have; a great listener and a tough grader; a giver of advice and counsel as often as one of grades. Steve was damn good at it, teaching, and even all Tony’s money and the lure of some carefree, fly-away life hadn’t been able to drag him away from this little New England town and back to New York where they’d met. So Tony had come here, stayed up in the admittedly picturesque boonies for weeks at a stretch before the song of the city dragged him home for a little while. But he could never stay away from Steve long.

Maybe that was what had him so moody this morning: he was supposed to go back tomorrow, he had to; there was a meeting of the executive committee that he couldn’t miss. Wanted to, very badly, because most meetings made him want to throw himself off a bridge, but couldn’t. It was part of the gig. Of his father’s legacy and all that.

But he was here now. And Steve was, at least for another few minutes. And maybe, maybe, Tony could persuade him to stay.

Steve stepped back into the room, a half-buttoned white shirt hanging from his shoulders. He was wearing his thinking face, too; no doubt already reviewing the day’s lesson in his head. Well. Huh. Tony could work with that.

He sat up and let the sheets fall by the wayside, tried not to smirk when Steve jumped a little, startled out of his reverie. “Tony, god,” Steve said. “I thought you’d gone back to sleep.”

Tony didn’t answer. Just stared in a way he hoped was baleful from under his eyelashes.

“Uh, sweetheart?” Steve squinted at him in the shadows. “You ok?”

“I need to talk to you,” Tony said, the words even breathier than they had been in his head. “Do you have a minute?”

Steve moved towards him, concern flickering over that broad, beautiful face. “Of course. What’s wrong?”

Tony bit his lip and looked away and that got him a hand on his cheek, the open cuff of Steve’s shirt kissing his chin.

“Tony,” Steve said softly. “Hey. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Tony took a deep breath. This was either gonna be brilliant or a disaster. Maybe a double scoop of both.

He looked up into Steve’s eyes, made his own as wide and uncertain as he could. “I really need your help, Professor Rogers.”

Steve froze: his fingers, his face, the whole deal. But he didn’t stop touching Tony, didn’t recoil in horror or anything. Ok. Tony would take that.

“It’s my last paper,” he said. “The grade that I got, I don’t--I can’t take something like that home. My dad’ll kill me.”

His wince was real--he hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to let real life drift too close to whatever this was, fantasy--but so was the sigh that snuck out of him when Steve’s thumb found his lips.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Steve said in his lecture voice, the one that brooked no quarter, that knew all the answers. “But maybe you should’ve tried harder. I can’t give you credit for work that you didn't do."  
  



End file.
